Tuesday, 30 January 2018

THE credibility of Zimbabwe’s general elections this year has been
thrown into doubt after a South African-run ID systems firm hired to
produce a new voters’ roll for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec)
recently took the electoral management body to court over alleged
“impropriety” in the handling of tenders.

The legal wrangle, which spilled to the Administrative Court last
Thursday, has the potential of tarnishing the credibility of a poll
meant to usher in a new era of transparency post-Robert Mugabe.A credible vote is key to the restoration of democratic legitimacy
following a de facto coup in November that ousted Mugabe after 37 years
at the helm. It is also crucial to unlocking badly needed financial aid and repairing relations with Western powers.President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 75, a one-time protégé of Mugabe,
pledged last week that transparent elections would be held by July and
that he would respect the result if the opposition wins.Laxton Group, whose production headquarters is in China, filed papers
with the Administrative Court on Thursday questioning why it had lost
out on a contract to “clean up” the list of registered voters.The company, whose directors are mostly South African, has been
registering Zimbabwean voters since September in a United Nations-backed
attempt to generate a “clean” list of voters as the basis for a
credible election.But Zec held a separate tender for what is known as the
“de-duplication” process – which ensures there is no double entry of
voters or other aberrations – and awarded it to a rival bidder, Ipsidy.

In its legal filing, Laxton accused Zec of manipulating costs presented in its bid for the de-duplication contract. It also said Zec had given an inexplicably low weighting to Laxton’s favourable rating in a technical test.“It is submitted that the impropriety of (Zec’s) conduct in awarding
the tender (to Ipsidy) … should be looked at within the context of the
whole rationale of regulating public procurement,” Laxton said in the
document.Zimbabwe’s previous elections have been marred by allegations of vote
rigging, with manipulation of the register of voters frequently at the
heart of the controversy.Zec acting chairperson, Emmanuel Magade was recently quoted as saying
he had referred the matter to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission
for investigation.Magade took over from former Zec chairperson, Rita Makarau, who resigned in December.Laxton argues it is best-placed to run the de-duplication process
because the registration data, including fingerprints of every voter, is
loaded on its systems. In its legal filing, Laxton also said United
States-listed Ipsidy was facing financial difficulties that could harm
its ability to do the job properly.

According to its 2016 annual report, Ipsidy has consistently run at a
loss, has accumulated debts of $49 million and needs additional
finance. The firm is also expected to incur net losses for the “foreseeable future”, it added.“It is respectfully submitted that this was terribly irresponsible
given that a three-year warranty was required,” Laxton said in its
filing. “If a company is unstable or unable to continue operating, it is
likely that it will not be in a position to provide these services in
three years’ time.”